Project Zone: 0 - More info/FAQ

Currently, this site is essentially a pre-release or beta to a large scale Sonic the Hedgehog information site that is slowly being built up. This is a long term, ongoing project of mine that's quietly been in production since 2004, and was first unveiled in April 2007 as a limited preview of content. In short, it will be a Sonic game information and strategy guide resource that aims to eventually cover every one (or as many as possible) of the platforming legend's games in very meticulous detail, presented in a fully illustrated and easily browsable webpage format.

 

More about these guides..

Have you ever thought that the FAQ guides available on GameFAQs, while useful, are presented in a less than comfortable format? Screenshots and maps would be of great use, as would a way of dividing the content into sections so that you can easily look up exactly what you want to know, without having to sift through endless paragraphs of unformatted text, hoping you haven't already gone past the thing you're after. There are many Sonic fansites that offer information through web pages, but I find that most of them lack alot of detail, especially when it comes to the levels, where only a couple of paragraphs and screenshots are available for each. You could shell out a tenner or more for a handy strategy guide book, complete with more images and maps than you can shake a stick at, but in the world of Sonic at least, they're often rather poorly written, with incorrect or omitted details and a lack of knowledge and interest of the ins and outs of the series rather evident by the author. They also tend to be hesitant at pointing out any glitches and the ways in which they can be avoided, which can be important at times. For your money's worth, you want a bit more expertise than that.

This rather colossal project of mine aims to combine the detail and accuracy of a well written FAQ with the visual features and organisation of an official printed strategy guide, all mangled together into a series of web pages. Eventually (though we're talking in terms of years here), it's hoped that every single game in the series will be covered within this website, or at least as many as I can possibly cover. The biggest emphasis here is on the levels of the Sonic platformers, and each one, for each game, will have its own page dedicated entirely to it. Information will not only relate just to the specific obstacles and tricky bits you'll encounter but also details surrounding its structure, appearance and tons of other trivia, relying on specific and consistent methods of organisation and analysis. Where possible, complete maps with the most detail you can find anywhere, as well as a load of screenshots will help illustrate the entire stage for you. I have a big interest in Sonic level design and the great variety in stages that make up Sonic's huge legacy, so this won't just be a strategy guide for those lost on what to do in a game, it'll be a complete source of reference designed for any Sonic fan, newbie or veteran, to take advantage of. And it won't cost you a tenner, either. In fact it won't cost you a darn thing.

 

Will the site consist of anything else?

Zone: 0 will also delve into the "study" of Sonic (or "Sonicology" as I call it), and this is where things get really geeky - if they weren't enough for you already. Many sites attempt to bring order and understanding to the story and characters of the series, but I'm more concerned with the actual games. By my count, we fans have got over forty different games under our belt for the series now, and I'll be suggesting ways of bringing some unofficial methods of organisation for the series. For example, I'll be implementing models for sorting the games into categories (primary, secondary and tertiary platformers, plus spinoffs and compilations), and I'm very interested in developing ways of categorising levels too. We can all spot recurring environments such as the tropical beaches, the pinball casinos or the mighty flying fortresses that pop up all the time, but I'll be forming a definitive list that can hopefully categorise just about every level ever made, useful for predicting the levels of new games and deciphering what's been done and what hasn't. This aspect of the website should hopefully be of particular use to any of you fangamers out there having difficulty in choosing what types of levels to make use of in your games, and the kinds of structures and obstacles that will be most suitable for each, according to the practise of the official games.

 

What's happening now, and what's on the schedule?

As I mentioned, this site is not currently the complete article, and is sort of being built up gradually as a "pre-release", which first concentrates on some real content that relates to the games, before all of the additional things like a full home page, forum and whatnot. This homepage section and the navigation at the top is all temporary at the moment. When further sections are added, this place will subtly transform into a fully launched website, but I feel that this way, it has a chance to build up momentum, and feedback from those of you that are interested will help me improve things when they aren't quite so set in stone.

The current schedule is to build game sections for Sonic 1, Sonic 2, Sonic CD, Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, one by one and probably in that order. I will hopefully be updating regularly, with every one or two pages that I complete. Even though this leads to sections being incomplete, I think it'd probably be more appreciated than hiding things away until an entire game section is ready (as I was originally intending to do). These games will be built up during this pre-release phase, and then once the site is properly launched, I'll continue with the likes of Sonic Adventure and the remaining primary games, followed by everything else.

Be under no illusions - that is alot of work, and will take ALOT of time because I invest a huge amount of detail in my guides, and if I didn't, I wouldn't bother at all. This is an on-going, long term project that will just carry on for years and years, and for that reason, may never be fully complete in terms of covering every Sonic game in existence. However, in the short term, things may not be quite as steep as they seem, as I have spent the first two years of this project writing the guides for those first five games. They are all complete, they just need to be implemented into web page templates, with screenshots and maps that are still to be made. So for the moment, the hardest parts are out of the way, so I'm hoping additions to the site will be fairly steady for a while.

 

How interactive will the site be?

An interesting one. I'm all for interactive content on websites, but I never really intended for this one to be such a site. Ideally, I want to stay in charge of what content goes up and what doesn't, and I always intended to create guides for Sonic games here, and not a system whereby guides can be created, so I can say with some certainty you will not be able to edit or add to any of the paragraphs written here. However, I've been considering the feature of "replies" for every, or certain pages within a guide that will allow readers to respond to anything they've read there, or post additional bits I've missed, of which I'm sure there'll be a fair few, as I don't necessarily have all the answers. It seems likely that such a feature will be implemented fairly soon.

I have also considered the inclusion of a forum, but I would want it to be a place that attracted the mature Sonic fan, where Sonic games, new and old, are appreciated and not constantly criticised. Where people with a real passion for the series come to discuss the types of things that the site is all about; game specifics, levels and theories relating to those kind of things, moreso than about characters and plots which is less of what this site is about. I wouldn't want to disallow people from joining if they don't fulfill that criteria, but if it degenerates into pretty much any other Sonic forum where rationality and maturity become a rarity, there would really be no point. If you support this vision for a forum, please let me know by emailing me or leaving a comment on one of my blog entries, and if I have enough potential members I may well give it some serious consideration.

 

Your feedback

As much as I love Sonic and I've loved delving into these games to uncover just about everything about them, it wouldn't be worth all the time I've given it if no one else cared about this project. Thankfully that does not seem to be the case, as the feedback I've received so far has been immensely positive. I would love to continue getting responses from other Sonic fans, crucially about what you think of the whole idea in general and if it will be of any use to you once more games are covered. Also about things like the layout, specific bits of the texts, maps etc, and anything really. See the blog page if you wish to leave me a comment, which you can do in response to any blog entry I've submitted there. I also maintain a topic at the Sonic Stadium Message Board, where you can drop me a comment if you're a member, or alternatively, feel free to email me. At this early stage in the public release of this project, it's important that I'm able to adjust things according to what people want to see, so let me hear it!

 

Already nearly three years in the making (in my spare time), Project Zone: 0 is my most ambitious undertaking, and as I've been responsible for creating just about everything to do with it so far, I can't guarantee it'll ever quite reach a stage of total completion. It constitutes a ludicrous amount of work and time, the latter of which I may not have so much of in the coming years. Nevertheless though, I'm determined to keep things going alongside any other commitments I have, and if this ever gets anywhere, it'll be helped along by the support I get from those of you who share my enthusiasm for the idea, and wish to see it come to life...

I think that's about it for this rather lengthy introduction (that's another thing actually - if you haven't realised it by now, you soon will, I'm very much a waffler and am rarely happy with a piece of text until it contains every bit of detail that I think is necessary, and that's usually alot!). Thanks very much for checking the place out, and do come back regularly for new updates, which I'll try to keep to on a fairly regular basis.

Cheers,

LiQuidShade, writer, webmaster and Sonicologist.